


sweat

by superfluouskeys



Series: 7 Days of Fic for 777 Followers [7]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 13:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11105748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: Sometimes Cassandra tries to think of a time--any time in her entire life--when she felt particularly happy, and comes up with nothing but fragments.  Prompt response: sweat.





	sweat

Those first years as Divine Justinia's Right Hand were nothing short of miserable.  Most days, Cassandra couldn't help but to think she had made a terrible mistake, from which there would be no escape.  Sometimes she tried to think of a time--any time in her entire life--when she'd felt particularly happy, and came up with nothing but fragments. 

Her brother had made her happy, but she'd watched him draw his last breath, and now even the happy memories of him were tinged with a terrible melancholy that sat upon her lungs like a sickness.  Galyan had made her happy in his way.  He'd turned out to be a wonderful companion, and she rather wished he hadn't pressed the idea of courting so heavily upon her, for she sorely missed his friendship now that that disaster was behind them.

Helping people had made her happy.  Making a difference she could see with her own eyes had been all she'd ever wanted.  This?  This was a lot of diplomatic nonsense.  If she'd wanted to cater to stuffy, self-centered nobles, she'd have stayed in Nevarra.  At least there the food would have been better.

Cassandra had positively loathed Leliana when first she arrived, but she was beginning to see that Leliana's strengths lay where Cassandra's did not: Leliana liked talking to people.  She liked dressing up the truth in pretty lies and dancing around issues instead of taking immediate action.  Just because Cassandra found these traits impossibly irritating did not mean that they weren't useful.

But for the most part, as much as she could, Cassandra avoided Leliana when they weren't working together.  Admiring a person's abilities was not the same as wanting to meet up for a drink.  Not that Leliana seemed to understand that.

 "I'm surprised to see you out of your room so late, Cassandra."

"Too hot to sleep," Cassandra replied flatly.  She wasn't in the mood to talk.  She was almost never in the mood to talk.

"Well, if you don't like the heat, Orlais was certainly the wrong place for you," Leliana said cheerfully.

"Hm."  Cassandra wiped her brow and smoothed a few stray locks of hair away from her face.  She was considering cutting off all her hair, but hadn't quite gotten up the courage to do it.

Leliana was silent for a brief, blissful moment.  "I...know it is trifling, talking about the weather.  I'm sorry.  Usually I'm good at figuring out what people want to talk about, but I haven't been able to figure you out yet."

I'd like to talk about nothing, Cassandra wanted to snap, but it seemed incredibly rude, especially in the face of Leliana's honest attempt.  "Idle chatter has never interested me," she said instead.

Leliana sat with a kind of energy Cassandra could not place, like those simple, mildly disparaging words had given her more than enough to draw from.  "Well then," she said, "I'll dive right into the deep end.  What's your deepest fear?  Do you really believe in the Maker?  What do you think happens after you die?"

Cassandra awarded her a withering look, but Leliana was unphased.  The unseasonable warmth suited her somehow.  She had uncovered her red hair, and the sheen of sweat made her skin glow in the remaining light of the evening.  She waited for an answer with warm, inviting eyes.

"Fine," Cassandra groaned at last.  "If you must know, I don't think any of that matters.  Suppose I have a deep, dark fear and suppose one day I must face it.  What then?  Suppose I believe in the Maker all my life and then in the end there is nothing.  What then?  Suppose I while away my days wondering about things beyond my grasp, things beyond the scope of this world.  What has my life been for?  I am here because I was asked to be here, because I wanted to make a difference somehow, for someone.  Why are you here?"

"For the same reason, of course," said Leliana, but Cassandra's rant did not seem to have discouraged her at all.  On the contrary, if she'd been glowing before, now she was positively radiant.  Cassandra found that further harsh words had died upon her tongue, and she was left just shy of speechless in the wake of such rapt attention.

Suddenly she was reminded of Amaranthine, the Chantry sister with whom she'd had a brief and disastrous affair a few years back, and she wondered suddenly how it had begun.  She wondered what about this moment reminded her of that one, and she realized they mirrored one another.  Amaranthine, too, had sought Cassandra out like this, with nothing much to say but volumes glowing in her eyes, and Maker, Cassandra didn't even _like_ Leliana very much, but she was irritable and sweaty and exhausted and lonely and deeply unhappy, and what would be the harm in seeking a moment's release?

But as soon as the moment had arrived, it had passed.  Leliana sat back a bit, placed a respectable distance between them, and swiped an arm across her brow.  Then she started talking about something unrelated.  How the weather would affect the crops somewhere in Orlais and what that would mean for...something.  Cassandra lost interest almost immediately.  She was too busy wondering whether there were any way to reinitiate so singular a moment, or whether she'd just imagined the whole thing to begin with.


End file.
